Katharina Cieplak-von Baldegg '06

In 1970, two Harvard students joined a band called The Modern Lovers. One was Ernie Brooks ’71, and the other was future Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Jerry G. Harrison ’71, a Visual and Environmental Studies film concentrator

“Your face is pure sex when you smile,” The Modern Lovers once sang in a song called “Dance With Me.” “It’s written in huge suburban letters / Which say ‘tenderness,’ which say ‘sex.’”

Two years ago, a new magazine that says “H Bomb” in huge, suburban letters was door-dropped at Harvard. Katharina Cieplak-von Baldegg ’06 co-founded the magazine, which proceded to create a national stir and media blitz.

She, too, is a film concentrator, and, among other projects, is working on a documentary about The Modern Lovers

“I believe in serendipity,” Cieplak-von Baldegg says.

Indeed, it was serendipity that brought Cieplak-von Baldegg to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival—the Mecca for experimental performance art—where she did a video installation for a performance piece. She had received a grant for film work in France, but used the money to go to Scotland instead when she found some of her best friends would be performing at the Festival.

“My first love is filmmaking,” Cieplak-von Baldegg says.

She is now working on her thesis film, an “experimental-action-romance, but really none of these. It’s really a boy-girl story. I love those,” she says.

She cites another boy-girl story as an influence: “I really like the way Godard does banter, the way it’s both romantic and cynical. But it’s boring to say you like ‘Breathless.’ Its much cooler to say you like Czech New Wave.”

Despite her commitment to film, Cieplak-von Baldegg will probably be most remembered on campus for her involvement with H-Bomb. When first announced, many wrote the magazine off as pornography. In fact, The Crimson ran the headline “Committee Approves Porn Magazine” on February 11, 2004 after H-Bomb was approved for publication on campus.

“H Bomb is really a lit and arts magazine,” Cieplak-von Baldegg says. “It’s about sexuality, but we have a wide variety of written content,” including poetry, fiction, and student artwork.

“We had this crazy idea, and I got to work with my best friends, and then finally see it in stores,” Cieplak-von Baldegg says of the experience making the magazine. “We were a bunch of beginners. The fact that the first issue happened was amazing.”

Cieplak-von Baldegg says she has become the “go-to person for questions about college sex.” Indeed, she was interviewed for an April 23, 2006 New York Times story on college sex magazines.

“Your life must be pretty dull in the dorm here,” continues The Modern Lovers song. Biographical similarities aside, the Lovers certainly weren’t talking about people like Katharina Cieplak-von Baldegg when they wrote that line.

—Alexander B. Fabry